I. Field
The following description relates generally to wireless communications, and more particularly to methods and apparatuses that facilitate positioning of an access point base station.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, data, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., bandwidth and transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
Generally, a wireless multiple-access communication system can simultaneously support communication for multiple wireless terminals. Each terminal communicates with one or more base stations via transmissions on the forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to the communication link from the terminals to the base stations. This communication link may be established via a single-in-single-out, multiple-in-signal-out or a multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) system.
A MIMO system employs multiple (NT) transmit antennas and multiple (NR) receive antennas for data transmission. A MIMO channel formed by the NT transmit and NR receive antennas may be decomposed into NS independent channels, which are also referred to as spatial channels, where NS≦min {NT, NR}. Each of the NS independent channels corresponds to a dimension. The MIMO system can provide improved performance (e.g., higher throughput and/or greater reliability) if the additional dimensionalities created by the multiple transmit and receive antennas are utilized.
A MIMO system supports a time division duplex (TDD) and frequency division duplex (FDD) systems. In a TDD system, the forward and reverse link transmissions are on the same frequency region so that the reciprocity principle allows the estimation of the forward link channel from the reverse link channel. This enables the access point to extract transmit beamforming gain on the forward link when multiple antennas are available at the access point.
Miniaturized base stations known as access point base stations (also known as femto cells, Home Node Bs (HNBs), etc.) have been developed to extend cellular coverage inside buildings. Access point base stations are a class of base stations, which may be installed in a user's home and provide indoor wireless coverage to mobile units using existing broadband Internet connections. To this end, it is noted that an access point base station may be placed in any of various locations within the home by its owner, wherein a sub-optimal location may be undesirable. For instance, an access point base station that is placed in an obstructed location (e.g., under a metal chest of drawers) may not be able to provide adequate coverage within the home. Similarly, an access point base station placed in an overexposed location (e.g. on a window sill) may cause/experience interference with respect to nearby user equipment, macro base stations, and/or other network entities. Conventional access point base stations, however, do not provide a mechanism for indicating whether a current location of the access point base station is adequate and/or for identifying particular problems with the location.
The above-described deficiencies of current wireless communication systems are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with conventional systems and corresponding benefits of the various non-limiting embodiments described herein may become further apparent upon review of the following description.